UPDATE: Six Hardeeville residents arrested in vandalism

Six Hardeeville residents were arrested Tuesday evening in connection with damages discovered at the Hardeeville Recreation Complex field house, according to police reports.

Anthony Bowers, 18, was charged with attempted burglary and Jamonta Davis, 20, was charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors, said Hardeeville Police Lt. Steven Thomas.

The other four suspects were juveniles age 13-16 and were taken to the Department of Juvenile Justice facility in Columbia. They are each being charged with attempted burglary and with malicious injury to property, Thomas said.

“The arrests were made through the cooperation of the residents of Hardeeville who helped by providing information about the suspects,” he said. “It took the community, hard work by Det. Alexis Weber and the dayshift, but we were able to find the suspects and make the arrests.”

Damage discovered Tuesday morning at the field house in the complex could cost up to $4,000 to repair, a price that will be borne by Hardeeville residents, said City Manager Bob Nanni.

The recreation complex damage was discovered a few days after it was found vandals broken into the garage behind the Heyward House on Main Street and run amok inside, throwing the items around and spray painting comments on the walls and floors.

“Our concern was they got inside of an old building that was an unsafe structure,” Nanni said.

He said the things that could happen to vandals when they break into a building can range from merely getting caught and paying the penalty for vandalism as well as restitution to more serious results, such as injury or even death.

“When they trespass, there are things that could happen to vandals that are unexpected,” Nanni said. “When they go to break a lock, metal splinters could fly back in their eyes, part of that building could collapse on them, the windows upstairs are broken and that lets in the weather, causing damage to the floors.”

Nagy said the vandalism problem has crept up on the community within the past six months, with eight juveniles charged with vandalism shortly before the holidays.

Nagy, Nanni and Hardeeville Recreation Director Addison Jarrell think the vandals expect to find sodas and candy in the field house even though it is just being used for storage.

Whether they get in or not, Nagy said the repercussions will be severe.

“The good people in this community are not going to tolerate this,” said Hardeeville Police Chief Ralph Nagy. “They haven’t tolerated other things, so they’re not going to tolerate this either.”

“We’re growing tired of this problem so we are going to get more aggressive in prosecution,” Nanni said after inspecting the field house damages. “It’s not fair making the citizens of Hardeeville pay for this.”

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